Text: Réka Mándoki

Over the past few years, environmental concerns, efficiency challenges in the sector and a shortage of skilled labour have led to a strong shift towards prefabrication all over Europe. These trends are also affecting the market of housing, as residential buildings are particularly suited to prefabrication due to their predictable loads and spans, and the current market environment favours cost-effectiveness over uniqueness. Although, like many European professional communities, Hungarian architects and Hungarian society have reservations about mass-produced buildings, and several past examples of failure show the risks of standardisation, mass-produced buildings can also offer a number of benefits. Prefabricated buildings and building conmponents have the potentials to meet predictable, reasonably high aesthetic and technical standards, ensured by factory quality control of materials and work stages. Mass production can also be worth the cost of optimising elements, thus reducing the amount of materials and negative environmental impacts. Advanced construction techniques will allow not only mass production but also mass customisation of components and constituents. However, prefabrication also poses a number of challenges: high investment costs, lack of skills and knowledge make it difficult to enter the market, and environmental and management problems related to transport and logistics need to be addressed, too.
However, based on the above, it appears that partial standardisation and mass production of housing can bring along a number of economic and environmental benefits. However, the question remains whether or not prefab housing can be socially sustainable.